A pleasant breeze blowing assisted me with my warm up on the way to the race at Kewdale. That is to say it was pretty windy and I had to push into the breeze the whole way out.
With B & D grade off second we had the chance to watch the A & C grade boys and girls duke it out.
A grade was on from the gun with a bunch of 6 or 8 getting an early break and they were never caught. The remainder got strung out and were pretty decimated by the finish, in fact they were lucky not to get lapped by the leading break. Ed Hollands took out the win from George Miller.
I didn’t witness the C grade finish but gather they were also pretty strung out on the last couple of laps.
Bruce and I were back for another crack at B grade and given the wind we knew it was going to be tough. We figured as per A grade you would need a group to get away and work together but neither of us were up for initiating this. Since Bruce had finished with the better sprint than I last week we agreed that we would look after ourselves and I would try get Bruce good position on the last couple of laps.
The pace was on from the gun which was as expected but things settled down after a couple of laps. We soon learned that there wasn’t really anywhere to hide in the wind and even with a tail wind there was no respite from the hurt.
Similar to last week the pace remained solid throughout the race with continual attacks, most coming along the back straight with the assistance of the tail wind. None of them stuck and it looked to be coming down to a bunch sprint when the sign for two laps to go was shown.
As discussed, Bruce had found my wheel and I started working towards the front of the bunch. Half way around the second last lap one of the guys launched a solo attack. Having seen him win previously using this tactic I wasn’t prepared to let him go and since no one else looked to be going after him I launched after him. I was thinking the bunch would chase and with Bruce on my wheel he would be protected.
Bruce saw that no one was chasing and decided to launch as well thinking if that the three of us could work together and stay away. I ran out of legs but Bruce managed to get across. Being stuck in no mans land I kept the pressure on thinking I could at least kick back into the bunch.
The bunch conveniently caught me at the bottom corner and I did what I could to make them have to work a little
harder to close the gap. Once they were passed I sat up realizing there wasn’t much more I could do. I counted about 4 seconds gap from the break to the bunch and figured they had it and it was now down to Bruce.
As I came around to the finish line I learnt that Bruce and done the job and Team SPR had notched up its second win of the season.
Well done Bruce.
For those interested, here is my race data. I’ve added a dashed line showing the average speed, you can clearly see the run into and out of the wind on each circuit. Nasty!
some gold, silver and bronze were on offer today at the state criterium championships. the masters division was tempting enough for mike and i to enter even though we are not noted for our “crit skillz”. the one benefit of being over 35 is that you don’t have to compete with 20 year olds anymore. it was a stunning day but the wind was really picking up by the time i headed down to armadale. the race didn’t start till 1:40 with the juniors and support men heading off first. parking was a struggle as they had blocked the road off as this race is held in conjunction with the highlands festival. this meant that in the background were highland dances, bagpipes and caber tossing. also kilts as far as the eye could see.
i met up with mike and we headed off for a good half an hour warm up around the roads of armadale. as race time approached we headed to the start to find about half the field was to be made up of glenn parker boys. slight exaggeration, but they did have the dominate numbers. as the support race finished, we were allowed onto the circuit for a couple of laps warm up. as i crossed the line i noticed my tyre was going very soft. i rolled back to the start and asked how long i had. four minutes to get back to the car and change it. as it had not gone all the way down, i sprinted off to the car.
thanks to mel’s dad peter and stu for helping me do a quick change and thanks to peter for offering me mel’s spare wheel for the race. we got it changed and i hurried back already in a fluster. holly had also ridden back to the start line to let them know that i was on my way. we were off.
whoa, no easing into this thing. after one lap we had already started to string out. i was struggling to hold my position and some of the guys in front of me were too. i was too far back and had to get a better position. unfortunately, this meant getting around people who were starting to lose contact fast. the glenn parker boys were doing a number on the field and the numbers were thinning fast. i was starting to lose contact and it was only about lap three. mike was also back with me and i was guessing that he could not surge with his heart condition. there was a small hill on the back of the circuit and you had to fight every lap to make sure you didn’t lose more time.
i had passed mike and another guy earlier to try to make the junction back to the pack. i was hoping it was going to be similar to the pinjarra race where they eased off after the first few surges and we got back on. unfortunately a parkers boy was off the front and the pace didn’t let up.
i began to fade and mike and passenger picked me up. we worked together for a bit but lost the passenger up one of the hills. basically mike i tried lap after lap to catch up, but to no avail. pretty soon the breakaway rider was making ground on us. i said to mike that when the main field catches us, i was pulling the pin. it only took another couple of laps.
fifteen laps all up for us and about 25 min. the race was not going that much longer and they never caught the breakway. i think that glenn parker took the 1, 2, 3 in the race. good team tactics. not the best outcome for spr, two dnf’s.
in the women’s open event, bec who rides with us sometimes, got in a breakaway with sarah-jean and stayed away till the end. she did the majority of the work and still managed to take out the sprint to claim a state title.
the open men’s was a fast and furious race with both brendan and steve having a crack. brendan did a whole lot of work early on for their team (aussie crates) and eventually popped out the back. steve held on well to the end, but the main group did not catch the breakaways. rabobank sprinter graeme brown sat on the back of the plan b boys up front and took the sprint ahead of brad hall.
so, it was a better day as a spectator then it was as a cyclist, for me. but that is racing, and you get out what you put in. long training days in the hills just don’t make for good crit racing days.
Nice to see Bruce on the start line but neither of us were anticipating featuring in the results. Bruce has done minimal miles recently, similarly me. So it was a case of hoping we finished with the bunch and our dignity intact.
There was a pretty decent field of around 30 riders which would at least offer us the opportunity to hide in the bunch.
Things got off to a pretty quick start which seems to be the usual but there was no real let up for the duration of the race. Some new faces and the size of the bunch resulted in a pretty attacking race. So for the majority of the race we were strung out single file with the odd respite whenever a break away attempt was caught by the bunch.
had a turn on the front, more to measure ourselves than anything. Bruce got away with another fellow for a bit but with the race averaging over 39km/h they, like all the other breaks, were never staying away.
So as anticipated, it came down to a bunch sprint and the Kewdale circuit is all about positioning on the last lap. Something neither Bruce nor I got right this week, both of us finishing just outside the top 10 with Bruce pipping at the line.
Both of us were happy to finish well and safely after a quick race.
Stats:
Duration: 44:42 min
Distance: 29.6 km
Min
Max
Avg
Power (W)
0
883
195
Heart Rate (bpm)
100
185
153
Cadence (rpm)
31
209 ??
94
Speed (km/h)
8.5
52.4
39.8
The image below is my Power/Heart data from the race and shows the variability of the work in a criterium. I haven’t included speed or cadence for clarity.
left to fend for himself as the only entry from the bunch in the Golden Spokes Support race Michael B was treating the race as a personal test. Whilst the rest of the racers were off chasing Rouleurs points Mike reeled off a fine second place winning the mens support race. Mel Hoskins who has ridden with us on the Sunday rides in the past pulled off the overall win (and obviously first woman) after outsprinting Mike for the line.
The pair escaped at about half race distance and with no concerted effort by the bunch to chase them down extended their lead to finish 30 seconds in front of the bunch.
Another some time Rouleur, Josie Tomic, finished with a third after being heavily marked by the other ladies.
As an aside two defacto Rouleurs, Julian and Hamish, from the Barista boys raced in the Open. They were taught a couple of lessons by the big boys, not the least of which was to make sure they enter the support race when there is one. However, sounded like they enjoyed the outing, particularly the opportunity to race with the fast guys.
In the Open, I believe Luke Durbridge took out the win. He was with a breakaway bunch of 3 from the first or second lap and left them with two to go. Not bad beating home the likes of Ben King and Cam Meyer even though this was probably not a priority race for them.
Good to see Davina out and about, it seems the broken Radius isn’t holding her back too much. Check her blog for an update soon.
I went along to have a look and liked what I saw, the circuit was fast & pretty safe. The organization looked pretty solid aside from a minor hiccup with the witches hats causing a delay to the start.
One concern to my mind was the presence of tri-bars in an Open road race, not sure how they slipped passed the commissaires. As it turned out they didn’t figure in the results or I believe the accident that occured, so no harm done.
A great result for Michael and here’s hoping this event grows into something over the coming years.
over 500 riders entered for the last event of the season.this is an increase of 100 over last years event.it is a surprise really since this one is so close to home, i thought that a lot more would be coming out to play.there were more riders at the swan valley event, so i am guessing that this one suffers because the course is described as hilly.
the wind… what happened to the hot day, it was pretty cool when we started but didn’t take long to warm up.it wasn’t like we needed armwarmers and vest.and really i am just complaining because i didn’t take a jumper with me to the start.
three laps of a 25km circuit on roads that we often use for the sunday hills ride.especially the stretch between karagullen servo and pickering brook.any ride we do down towards armadale or the kahuna, will always follow that road to get to the coffee shop.i would not be able to count the number of times we have ridden along it.the little circuit around repatriation road had been added to our rides a couple of times recently mainly because we had this event coming up.
first corner, not tired just yet.
team of 8 – ryan, brendan, mike, michael, stu, jerry, bruce, peter.there is a maximum team size of 9 and a minimum of 5.it is rare for us to field a full team and even harder to get a good set of evenly matched riders.
teams off at 30 sec intervals meant that there would always be groups in front of us to chase down.it also meant that there would always be groups that we would have to pass which can be tricky.
michael gets a flat before we leave the car-park (for a change).he has a habit of flatting during these events, so hopefully this meant that we got that out of the way early.
lorraine also turned up to support the spr boys with evil brownies.i had one and it was probably the reason why i didn’t run out of energy during the race.
we started before the spr2 team (so we had no-one important to chase).the start order of the teams is usually reverse ability with the faster teams starting later.as we had not really raced these events before, the organisers did not know where to start us and put the second team starting 6 minutes behind us.
from about the halfway mark of the first lap, bruce was really struggling.he was finding it hard to keep the pace and couldn’t catch his breath.there was a burnt out area on the course and we suspect that he developed a bout of asthma from breathing in the smoke and other crap in the area.we changed tact and had six of us rolling through in two lines while bruce sat a the back with ryan pushing him to keep the pace up.at the end of the first lap, he peeled off and went to the medical tent with lorraine.
we kept the pace up for lap two and made good time passing other teams.it was getting more congested now as the 2 lap and 1 lap teams were on the course.this meant that some of the groups we were passing were alos getting passed by other groups.made things tight with riders coming the other way and general traffic on the road as well.on a couple of occasions we had to pass some cars that were unable to get around a group of slow riders.
start of lap 3, brendan realises his rear tyre is going soft.we are passing by the pickering brook school and he starts bouncing it to check the pressure.from behind, it is clear that it is going soft… fast.we go as far as we can, but he pulls over and i was expecting that he would change it.instead, ryan pulls out a gas bottle and they just pump it to get it hard again.we are off with minimum delay.
get to the turn around at karagullen and head back up the hill with brendan’s tyre slowly going down.we pull over again and ryan adds more gas.i was unsure whether they had enough so i grab my saddle bag, but the whole mount and everything comes off the bike. i then had to shove it all back in my pocket, wasting time as the rest of the group heads off.ryan waits for me and drafts me back to the pack.
end of first lap, getting tired now.
we head up the last climb before the finish and onto the nice smooth hotmix.brendan says that he can feel the valve every time the wheel rotates so it is pretty flat.ryan and he stop to gas again, while the rest of us just slow time it up the hill.some of the groups we have past are now passing us.once ryan and brendan catch back up, we all go hard to get to the finish.team u and i get caught up amongst us and we all finish in one big group.
finish in around 1:57 according to brendan’s speedo but we will wait for the official confirmation.each team captain was wearing a transponder which they will work the times out with.
as we regroup after at my car, lorraine pulls out the esky and provides everyone with a nice cold coke and brownies.we will be working on getting a spr sun shade to congregate around for next years races.
rob wins the leadership jersey for his work in keeping the spr2 team together and setting ground rules as to what constitutes a push and what is just touching another man’s bum.
all up a good hit out especially for spr2 as they had not raced this format before.
don’t actually know if this is an easier way to write the blog.seems to take just as long.
handicap races. i haven’t had a good trot with them this year as it is a totally different style of racing. the first was menzies to kalgoorlie where i hit the cramp wall at about 85kms and had to pull out. the group i was in was smashing along at 45km/hr from the gun and i just couldn’t hold that pace for 132kms. the next was the collie-donnybrook race where i had no legs left once the group hit the final climb. one of the guys in our group wanted to go hard from the gun to try to stay away from scratch. we didn’t have enough of a handicap for that to happen over 100kms. at least i finished that one.
this race at northam had the potential to be a hell of a lot worse as it was five laps of a circuit that contained the main climb out of town. it wasn’t a particularly hard climb, but over the 125kms it was going to wear the legs away each lap. so it was all going to come down to who was in our group and what handicap we would get. we being mike who was the only other spr rider to front up for this event. brendan and steve were racing as was davina who was going with the plan-b team. the rest of the spr crew were chasing mountain points around perth.
the day was pleasant enough with only a sprinkle of rain as i approached northam. the predicted top of 20ish was easily achievable and with a start time of 11:00 we would be racing in the “heat of the day”. not that it would be too much of a problem today.
i pulled into the start finish area as they were setting up tents and tables for the race and went looking for the sign-in point. hmmm. not here. apparently it was up the road at the visitors centre where they start the avon descent. back in the car as it was too far to walk. well too far if i was to do a 125km race as well. handed over my licence, collected my number and found out the handicaps. the plan b girls were off at 11:00 with another group 4min later. mike and i were off the 8min mark with hamish and dean from squadra barista off 12min. brendan was off 17min and steve somehow managed to be thrown in with the 21min group. after that there were the usual “a” grade boys in two groups back to 27min. on a 125km course with 5 hill climbs, i was sure that we would not be staying away from scratch to the end.
as we rolled up to the start line one of the guys in our group tried to set the ground rules. he didn’t want us to go too hard and smash the group apart early, but try to stay together for as long as we could. mike and i said that we were just trying to get to the end so weren’t looking at attacking and going on a 125km solo effort. as we set off, we had aussie crates guy who set the ground rules, lpr dude, knightfrank, melville fremantle guy along with mike and myself. a pretty small group and it would be interesting to see how well we did together.
the first couple of laps were pretty uneventful. the climb we tackled at an even tempo although on the second time up there were calls to take it easy. this was usually when mike went to the front to set the tempo which was generally higher than the other guys. i sprinted around to get on his wheel, but he wasn’t attacking, just going faster. these laps were really just getting an idea of the course and the wind direction. we did work well together and everyone did turns on the front without really missing a beat. the only problem was that they had started the juniors and they were now on the road in front of us, making it hard to know if you were gaining on our 4min men or not. at the top of the climb one of the young guys must have put a wheel in the dirt as he was sitting on the road edge with the bike on top of him. didn’t look too bad and there were some support people not far behind us, so we weren’t stopping.
at the start of the third lap we saw the group ahead of us on the climb. we had already pick up one of their number earlier on and i heard him say to one of our group that they had smashed it to try to catch the girls and he fell off the back on the hill. there were three or four riders in that group and when they saw us they kind of sat up and waited. we continued the climb together and i think we lost melville freo guy on this ascent.
we kept up the same tempo riding down the side of the hill and along the flats. pretty soon we saw the girls up ahead and the tint-a-car lead car just ahead. we swallowed up their group and our numbers hit that point where we could actually start rolling through instead of just doing turns. unfortunately this didn’t really work too well as some of the guys would smash off the front for their turn then stop pedalling causing a kind of sprint situation to close the gaps. this made the pace irregular and we eventually fell back into single turns at the front. unfortunately the pace change had caused us to drop a few more riders and when i looked around mel and josie were not there. we still had davina and claire with us along with half of the two other groups.
at the start of the fourth lap, we lost claire as the climb started but the rest of the group hung in there. after the small plateau halfway up the first section of road, an old guy from the 4min group in a ag2r kit took off. no-one was really keen to chase him as we were forcing a tempo up the hill and still had one more lap to go. mike and i did some turns at pace setting on the hill but i coped a mouthful from the crates guy who for some reason was accusing me of going slow to let the other guy get away. i have no idea what he was talking about as i was still just setting the same tempo.
as we crested the hill and headed back down, the group set up an informal roll through to chase the ag2r guys down. informal cause it is hard to get a proper roll through happening when you are all going at speed and also the pace was continuously surging. as the road flattened into a series of rolling bumps the group still tried to chase down, but it was really all over the place. a guy in front of me would literally sprint when he hit the front and then i would be left with a huge gap. i wasn’t sprinting and tried to close the gap without forcing another one to open behind me. after this happened a couple of times, the crates guy started yelling at me calling me a poofter and claiming that i was deliberately riding slow to let the other guy go. i’m pretty sure i told him what i thought and blamed him for not consistently rolling through and braking the group apart every time he hit the front. i was tempted to just sit in now as he had really pissed me off.
we kept going though and hit the flatter part of the course where we could get the roll through happening a lot smoother. about halfway back into town there was a yell from behind as the scratch group had caught us. there was a sprint to jump on board the train then i we were all content to sit in and let them dictate the pace. we came back through town and headed for the hill again. davina dropped off after the feed zone as the group rolled through the lower slopes. the pace was not extreme as we started the hill, but picked up with a couple of attacks which dislodged me, crates guy and mat from melville-freo who we picked up from the 4min group. just prior to that the crates guy had apologised for earlier on, but that’s just racing in the heat of the moment.
the main group slowed a bit on the plateau and i managed to claw my way back on. mike was still in that group as were a few others that we were originally riding with. the scratchmen kicked again and it was all over for me. i set a tempo to the top and worked with mat and crates guy (who never did a turn on the hill) to get over the climb. once at the top we started to the descent and started my cramps. the higher pace started cramping my calves and i had to ease off and let the other guys go. i made my way down the hill and actually stopped for a call of nature that i had been wanting to make since the 2nd lap. as i got underway again, davina along with three other guys picked me up and i joined in the roll through. i only lasted about three or four turns before my hamstrings began to cramp and i fell off the pace. the 45km/hr was too much for me that late in the race. i fell into damage control mode and made my way home.
it’s times like this i think i need some oakley thump sunnies that have the built in mp3 player. i get a bit bored riding the rest of the way by myself. there were two things that kept me interested. a huge lizard ran across the road in front of me. i hadn’t seen one that big since i lived in the plibara. and within 300m of the finishline, as i past a yellow car on the side of the road and three kids jumped out to frighten me and scared the utter crap out of me. lucky i didn’t fall off. i was glad to be finished.
no idea where i came except the crates guy and mat came in 8th and 9th so i think i came in 14th, but not sure until the results come out. post race i chatted with mike, to find out that he got dropped on the last pinch when the scratchmen attacked again. but he kept going and should have got a top ten finish. brendan pulled out with a coughing fit and has since been told by the doctor that he might have a sinus infection. steve avoided a massive crash at 60km/hr by locking his brakes up so much that he wore a hole right through his tyre. me, i got changed and headed home, tired but satisfied that i held on to the last lap and finished the whole thing.
when you think of a team time trial you think of the old team postal boys in the tour de france. all power and grace and all working together like a well oiled machine. and then… there is the wa state champs. i’m not saying that there were no well oiled machines out there today. the plan b men’s team smashed the course and looked to be doing it well as they flew along the other side of the road from us. however, there were a lot of teams that didn’t look too oiled and i am guessing that ours was one of them.
the conditions today were nothing short of atrocious. the only thing that would make it unbearable would be a lot more rain. basically the wind was so strong, it tried to blow you off the road at every opportunity. the closest weather station that i could find on the net was mandurah which reported 61km/h average winds with gust up to 87km/h. as you expect the coast to be a bit windier, drop about 10km/h of those numbers and you still get crap riding conditions. what made it worse was the course was three sides of a square, so you didn’t just get a headwind/tailwind combination, but rather a very bad crosswind/headwind/tailwind/crosswind combination. i know i put crosswind in there twice, but it played such a big part to the day.
so, in the lead up to the event we had a choice to make. which division would we race under. as ryan is the only one in our team that does not qualify for masters, it would depend entirely on whether he wanted to race. in the end it was stu, mark, jerry and i that formed the team and we signed up under the masters 35-49 division.
the course, as previously mentioned, was loosely the three sides of a square. see attached. the first part started straight south before heading in a se direction. back south again before turning directly west to the turn around and back the way we came. the course was pretty much flat so was ideal for a team time trial and ideal to get those well oiled machines all working together. as i said, the wind through all of that out the window.
we were scheduled to start at 09:51 and would be the fourth masters team off. the open women’s riders would already be on the road before us and the open men would be following behind. there were only seven masters teams so we only had to beat four teams to get a medal. the aim was to at least get a medal of any colour.
as we prepared our gear, the rain began to fall. hard. everyone just left the bike against the cars and jumped inside to wait it out. the rain wasn’t too bad and i could live with it. after the rain stopped, however, the wind really started to blow. we kitted up and headed out for a warm-up ride. in the process of borrowing chris’ ridely road bike, i managed to also get his cosmic carbone deep dish wheels. being a time trial i decided to give them whirl to try to grab whatever advantage i could. as mark and i headed out for a warm-up, i decided that i had made the wrong wheel choice. we got as far down as where the road swings to the south-east and the crosswinds really came into effect. i found that i was having trouble keeping the bike straight and really had to fight it. we turned around and made the tailwind assisted run back to the car. i had bought my real design wheels with me which had a lower profile so swapped out the front wheel to try to gain some control. during the warm-up we could see lots of guys running full disks on the back and deep dish rims on the front. i hoped they had better control than me.
our start time approached and we discussed team tactics. basically we would straight line it doing 30 sec turns on the front. we would all stay together till the turn around but then could drop a rider on the return as we only needed three to get a finish time. if anyone got a flat they would be left behind, except if they were the third rider remaining. all good we thought. just a matter of staying in formation.
our time came and we got our count down to go. i was on the front and had trouble clipping it and had to give it a second go before it clicked. not a good start. then as we wound up the pace i went to put it in the big ring and it didn’t want to shift up. not good at all. it was working fine before, and now i was worrying about a broken cable and whether i could do the whole thing in the small ring. i eased the pressure off the pedals and tried again. this time is shifted smoothly, but i really didn’t need the extra stress.
the first couple of k’s down to where the road swung around were ok. we had a head wind, but you could get a good draft on the wheel in front and we were swapping out turns often enough for everyone to get a rest. as the road turned, we came up over a railway crossing. this is where i got my first real fright. as the bike lifted over the crest of the crossing, a gust came in from the right and gave my bike a thumping. i now was wishing i had even lower profile wheels on.
this stretch down to the right hand turn was pretty bad. we managed to organise ourselves so that we echeloned across the road with the lead rider as close to the centreline as they could be. however, we were still being hit by gusts that would move your bike to the left and everyone had to be extra careful as we were now overlapping about half a bike in order to get a draft. i found that most of the time i could not actually get down on the tri-bars as it was too unstable in the gusts. i just grabbed the bullhorns and hung on for grim death. the wind had also spread lots of dead branches on to the course and we also had to avoid them to save us from getting a puncture.
we hit the right hand turn at the 10 km mark and i was glad that we now had a headwind. before we reached the turn we could see two teams in front of us and we knew that we could make up some more ground now. one was the masters team that started 2 min ahead of us, while the other was one of the women’s teams from about 10 mins earlier. i looked back and could not see anyone after us so i guessed that we were doing alright.
i was now pulling longer turns at the front as i didn’t have to fight the crosswinds and could get into a better rhythm. unfortunately this section only lasted for 5 kms and we turned right again to cop the full brunt of the crosswinds.
the 6 kms along this stretch to the turn around was the worst conditions that i have every ridden in. i hardly got down on the tri-bars as i found the bike uncontrollable. and even when i did, i was watching up the road to see where the bushes acting as a wind break finished, so i could get ready for the gusts to hit us again. most of the time we were riding so close to side by side that we hardly formed a line at all.
about halfway down this stretch, i noticed my polar speed mount had come loose and was now precariously hanging at the end of my forks against the quick-release lever. if it swung around it would go straight into my spokes and would probably make quite a mess of either me or the bike. i kept a watchful eye on it and tried to work out how and when i could rectify the problem. as we approached the turn around i told mark and he said to sprint ahead so i could fix it without losing the team too much time. i ended up just stretching it around the skewers as well so the it could move anywhere. unfortunately it meant that the end of the cable ties was now playing a delightful tune on my spokes as they turned past. it didn’t matter. you could hardly hear anything over the wind.
we now had the same problem with the wind but now from the other side for the return trip. big gusts and hard to hide from it. being an out and back we also got a view of some of the teams that were in front and behind us. some were all over the road and others were just powering along. i was hoping the powerful ones were all in the open men’s division.
about halfway along this stretch, we lost jerry. he didn’t lose too much ground and he said that he almost made it back on, but the wind was too much and resigned himself to riding home on his own. he was not he only one to do that today. up ahead i saw an aussie crates rider who turned out to be steve, who often come out on the sunday ride. he had been dropped by his team and was now finding his own way home by turning around early.
we took the left hand turn and now had the wind on our backs. again the turns got longer as without fighting the crosswind, you could spend more energy going forward. i was very disappointed to come to the end of this stretch. we turned left again and started to negotiate the last crosswind section.
i was starting to struggle now and was having trouble holding position in the line. i couldn’t get on the bars and power along, so didn’t feel like my riding was very fliud. we echeloned to the right and as you were overtaken you had to swing down and all the way around the others to get back onto the right hand side out of the wind. we now also had steve and another lost rider hanging onto our draft to help get themselves home.
we battled along, but both those lost riders eventually passed us to act as a carrot for us to chase. unfortunately, we weren’t that hungry and i think it was actually harder to ride in formation that it was to rode solo. on your own, if a wind gust hits you, then you can easily just drift across the road and back on track. in a team time trial, you really needed to control the bike at all times as there was someone relying on your position.
finally the road swung north and we hit the final tailwind stretch for home. stu and i were stil powering along, but mark was starting to struggle a bit. i guess this is where the triathlon background of the two of us comes to the fore as mark recognises that it is an area in which he has not done much training. we powered up to the finish and mark was calling for us to ease off as he was losing the wheel. we were yelling at him to go harder as it was only the last km and he needed to give it everything. stu and i rode side by side to try to give him a bigger draft area and we managed to cross the line in 1:08 for the 42 kms. i was so glad that it was over. the wind and the openness of the course made it one hell of a tough day.
we waited for jerry to finish before we headed off to the cars. a team from bikeforce southern river was behind us and a couple of those guys were the ones doing all the work at last weeks cyclo-sporitf race. they said that they got 1:10 or so, so we knew that we had at least one team down. three more to get a medal. we got changed but left the spr gear on just in case we actually reached the podium. unfortunately the presentations didn’t start till about one o’clock after there was some delays in getting the timing for the juniors organised. this gave us an opportunity to wander down into pinjarra and grab some food etc before hand.
after a two hour wait we still didn’t know if we got a place or not. i was already over my expected home time and had to ring and explain that there was a good chance that we got a medal. i was hoping that we didn’t all just sit around and wait for a fourth place.
state team time trial silver medal
in the end our time was good enough for second place and my second state masters silver medal for the year. we were pretty happy about it but would have a lot of work to do to make up the 6 min the first place guys managed to get. the first open men’s team managed to clock it in under 1 hr and blitzed the next team by six minutes as well.
steve’s team came in third to get him a bronze medal in the open division, while mel, josie and sarah managed to narrowly hang onto first place by about 10 or 15 sec. bec’s team took out third in the open women and took home a bronze.
so, a good result for an absolutely awful day on the bike. we were all pretty happy to get a medal and it made getting out of bed this morning worthwhile. i doubt we would have made the effort for just a sunday hills ride.
as far as racing in perth goes, nothing can come close to the popularity of the cyclo-sportif events. however, as the organisors will tell you, it is not racing but a participation event. as such, the different format today gave others an opportunity to see how a real road race is run. instead of the normal team time trial format, this event would be a grand fondo mass start event. well mass enough to head off in groups of around 40 – 50 riders with 2 min between each group. as such the “no drafting between groups” rule was not in effect likewise the “stick together as a team rule”. this meant that we could form big groups and work together as well as drop team mates and not have to slow the whole group down to allow them back on. not that we were going to do it deliberately, but there would be other groups that would dictate the pace.
so, getting ahead of myself a bit again.
the event was to be held at york which, from previous experience, meant open roads with lots of crosswinds. it was not forecast to disappoint. the course would take us north to spencers brook before turning west towards toodyay, but not quite hitting the toodyay shire border. there is a bit of a dispute with the toodyay shire after they stuffed around the cyclo organisation earlier on in the year. it seems that 600 cyclists with supporters is an inconvenience to a town. the toodyay event this year was moved to lancelin. because of this, the advertised 108km event would be shortened to just under 100km.
so, as this event was not being run like a team time trial, we opened it up to anyone that we normally ride with as opposed to the normal race team. we were also keen to get a few riders into the 70km event so that they get a taste of racing rather than just coffee rides. at the end of the day we had a team of nine in the 100km event and a team of six in the 70km event. lorraine’s version of events for the 70km race have already been posted below, but well done to those guys and girls as for all of them it was the first event of this type they had been in.
in the 100km event along with myself, were, mark , mike, dr jerry, michael, dr mark, doug, ben and carlo. it was the latter four’s first time at a cyclo event and it would be interesting to see how they held up.
as we were a new team and had previously been riding under the rio tinto jersey, the organisors did not know our form and as such put us in the last group to go. i did a bit of negotiating and managed to get us into the third group alongside the current rio tinto riders. it would be interesting to see how this event would play out with such a wide range of skills present in each group.
we headed to the line and i noticed how tight my quads were. i had spent the entire previous day building a play-bench for ben and was now paying for the constant squatting and drilling and cutting wood. it was not a good sign for the start of a race but i was hoping that they would get better as the day wore on. pretty soon we were off.
our group was quite big and probably contained about 50 riders. with no real organisation the group was all over the place from the gun. mike suggested that we do single turns at the front and peel off, but i was keen to see how the rest of the group would actually work before i committed our team to dragging everyone around.
so, what happened instead was riders would go hard at the front and start to smash the group apart. we were guilty of that also and slowly but surely we dropped riders from our group and picked up others that started two minute in front of us. after about 10 kms i decided that i we needed a bit of control. we had already lost doug, dr mark and ben to an earlier surge up a undulation and they got caught in the back of the group. we had lost all the rio team except jens who had stuck with us on the surges. the majority of the group was made up of our spr team and a team from southern river bikeforce.
as i said i eventually got sick and tired of the chaos and rolled to the front and started yelling at people. we got a roll through happening. mike was concerned that we were chasing down carlo and jens who were currently up the road. i said that it was way too early and they would not stay away from here, so we will pull them back and just maintain control for now. some of the other teams were concerned that we would roll through too hard, but i reassured them that we would just do this to keep out of the wind.
it was all going fine, although some people needed a reminder every so often when they would not hold a wheel properly and let gaps appear. also, whenever something out of the ordinary (i.e. railway crossing or corner) appeared, the group would lose it impetus and have to be reminded to roll through again.
after the left hander at spencers brook, we came across a railway crossing that was at an angle. the rider next to me swerved to avoid the guy in front who had turned to get his wheel perpendicular to the tracks. the guy next to me had his front wheel slip out as the track was damp from the light mist that had been present all morning. he came down with a thump and jens narrowly avoided riding straight into him. we looked back briefly, but kept going.
we were now riding almost straight into a headwind and along the way we dropped a whole bunch more riders. pretty soon it was the southern river guys and us along with maybe a handful of different individuals that had lost their teams.
about halfway along this stretch, mike took off. not a deliberate attack, but i think he broke away on a small hill and just kept going. carlo soon bridged across to him and the two stayed out front for a while. now whenever a southern river (or ss riders as that was their race number) tried to move off the front, mark would just swing off with them causing the group to snake along the road. when asked why he wasn’t doing a turn, mark replied that he had teammates up the road so he wasn’t going to chase them down.
this continued for a while and i thought that it was a good opportunity to exploit it and try to bridge across to mike and carlo. i was on the back so sprinted to get around the group and managed to gap them as they were still stuffing around. i got about halfway across the gap and looked back to see jerry on the front of the pack, chasing me down. i sat up as i didn’t want mike and carlo to be caught. i asked jerry what he was doing and he asked me why i was chasing down my teammates. i said that i wasn’t as i had a gap and was trying to bridge across but he was the one that was dragging the rest of the pack along. we drifted to the back and had a talk about tactics. it was decided to just leave mike and carlo out there and see how they did.
from then on it was up to the ss boys to do the work, so we left well alone. they did an admirable job and mark commented how they didn’t once complain that we had stopped working. as we approached the turn around, the other two groups in front of us came blas
ting back along the road. that tailwind looked good and i couldn’t wait to taste it.
just before the turn we got to see how far ahead mike and carlo were, and the gap did not seem too great. at a right hand corner, one of the ss boys went left for some unknown reason, so the rest sat up to wait for him. i tried to take advantage by attacking to see if i could get across to mike. mark also made an effort, but when i looked back, they had started to get organised and where chasing. i sat up again and found my place at the back of the pack.
the tailwind turned out to be not quite a tailwind. as the road turned the wind came from every direction but mostly was blowing across the road. our group was strung out trying to get a draft and the ss boys were doing a good job of forcing us into the wind or risk riding on the other side of the road. i think we lost a couple more riders along this stretch and it was not surprising. if you didn’t get in the prime draft position, it was a hard ride.
after the turn at spencers brook, michael dropped to the back and was bouncing his back wheel in the tried and true method of checking whether it was flat. i had a look and it was pretty soft from what i could see. i bid him farewell and he stopped to change it… three times.
the remainder of the race was pretty much the same. the wind was now coming across from the right and was quite strong. the group echeloned across the road, but that really only gave protection to the first 4 or 5 riders before the rest of us had to line out behind. this meant that we were exposed to the wind for the rest of the ride.
mark had got around that problem by joining the ss boys in doing some turns at the front. he wasn’t chasing but gave a hand to set the pace and i allowed him to stay out of the wind.
i had no computer as i was still on chris’ bike so i didn’t know how far to go. it was probably the last 15 min or so that my legs began to cramp up on a small rise and i fell off the back. i was in damage control mode for the rest of the ride and just did what i could to get to the end. luckily i was picked up by a couple of total triathlon guys for the run into town and they gave me a nice draft home.
so, as is the format of cyclo-sportif, we all headed to the town hall for lunch. with over 600 riders, the logistics of getting everyone fed is quite a job, but they manage to pull it off at each event and I have never known anyone to go hungry. a few awards jerseys are given out for the bravest, strongest and stupidest riders as well as a bunch of raffle prizes.
so at the end of the day, the results were based on the combined time for the first four riders. I had missed the briefing as I was chasing down carlo to give him his race number and didn’t hear that bit of info. luckily for us mark and jerry stayed with the group and with mike and carlo up the road, my time didn’t matter. however, as we were actually competing against all the teams, not just the ones in our group, we probably should have just all worked together and may have got a better overall time. we will know for next time.
Well, for the first time team SPR would have a second team competing in a Cyclosportif event… A number of brave/foolhardy/adventuresome souls from the group had volunteered, succumbed to peer pressure or been shanghaied to join our merry
Despite a nervous sleep on Sat night I was up early on Sunday raring to go. With Lisa navigating (with numerous maps) Declan managed to find his way to Darlington, pick me up and make great time up to York. Once we got within 30k of York it was obvious from the convoy of cars carrying road bikes that it was going to be a BIG event! With registration, day licenses and team briefing complete all that was left was to eat chocolate brownies, make yet one more trip the toilet, saunter up the start line and wait nervously for our 9.13am start.
Our team were the last in a of a group of 4 or more that headed off and we easily passed a slower team without much effort. The pace out for the first 5k or so was pretty easy but it was obvious that the head wind for those up the front would be the biggest hurdle of the day. At this point our inexperience and miscommunication became our downfall and we ended up passing the CRT team in front of us and heading out on our own at a pace well in excess of our comfort zone. The next fatal blow was the sight of Declan’s computer hitting
the ground and him swinging around to retrieve it. The horrible wind and mix of abilities meant that we didn’t last long with our foolhardy manoeuvre and less than 10k out our little team (no longer merry!) had scattered to the four winds!
%$#@!!! Think I… I know we didn’t have to stick together for the Fondo but had not anticipated us breaking up this quickly. With Ronny and Melvyn somewhere out in front and everyone else behind me somewhere I was out in no-man’s land on my own trying to cope with the wind. By the sounds of it most of us found small groups to tag onto and fend for ourselves as best we could. A couple of accidents (one with a group Melvyn had joined onto) on the way out were reminder to ride safely, especially with riders you don’t know.
I can’t describe the relief of turning round the cone at the 35k mark and finally feeling a tailwind…magic. So nice to finally be able to crank up the gears and have a fairly effortless 40k/hr+ ride for a while. At this stage I realised I must have passed Melvyn (at the the accident) as I saw him coming up on the other side of the road. I was enjoying the relative ease of riding when I saw the SPR “A” team cruise past me… “jump on” yells Pete. Damn right I thought, especially as I saw Melvyn had grabbed a lift too. Yee hah… Now this was more like it and I sped along for a good 5 min with the “big boys”… until the first little hill. Adios “A” team… it was nice while it lasted! On my own again… naturally! As I contemplated how tired my legs were starting to feel, out of nowhere appears Neil… Great! A familiar face to work with. Further ahead we saw that Melvyn had dropped off the “A” team. His legs were cramping up and he urged us to keep going. We got about halfway back before Neil also told me to keep going and I took off on my own… Again!
The rest of the ride was uneventful except for the return of a nasty crosswind and a spattering of rain. I crossed the line a little over 2hrs15 which, considering the wind and that I was was on my own for much of the time, I was pretty happy with. Ronny had been the first of our group to finish. He had found some good groups on the way and this, combined with some strong riding, had brought him home in just over 2 hours. We were closely followed by Neil, Melvyn, Declan and Lisa. Lisa had put in an amazing effort considering that she was suffering from considerable back pain on the day.
6 people out and 6 people back…. all still managing a smile on their face. A good measure of success I’d say.
Once we had collected our raffle and meal tickets we headed off to the town hall and met up with the rest of the Rouleurs for a very well deserved meal and rest. With over 660 riders plus all the support peolpe the place was packed. Well fed, prizes awarded and announcements made we meandered back to the cars, said goodbye to friends and team mates and headed home.
As my first Cyclosportif event, I must say I thought it was a great experience. Thanks to Peter for encouraging and organising us and thanks to everyone in the B team for getting involved and representing the Rouleurs.
Registration for the annual Collie-Donnybrook was much the same as any other race, except that on this day it brought dread and excitement to bear at the unveiling of handicaps! Would all the preparation be wasted or would it stand in good stead? Whatever the case, 104km has to be ridden – it doesn’t just happen. Scan program; Where’s my name, where’s my name, ah, there it is in the 24min group. Wow, fantastic, great! – not many other names I know though, but at least it’s a big group – extra good! Painful memories of my only previous Collie-Donnybrook experience in 2006 in which my tiny group (19min) disintegrated barely into 104km of torture were washed away with anticipation of a good result this year. Further scan of the handicaps showed Pete at 14min – jees, he’ll be pissed’, and Ryan at 12min suggesting that we wouldn’t be seeing much of each other on the road that day. Ahead of my bunch were the 33min and 28min groups. I had recognised a few names from South West Cycle Club (SWCC) and considered that a couple of them might have a winning chance if they could stay away.
As we waited at the start I made small comment to ‘coffee boy’ who looked withdrawn and a little flat (duh), and my comment went unresponded. My group’s start was un-awesome, we missed the first turn to head out of town and had to double-back – no idea what the marshal was doing. The pace for the first few kilometres was very Sunday strolling-like, despite my verbal harassment and gesticulations. Except for a few riders, there appeared to be a general lack of will to ride hard and take a chance to win. Disappointment and frustration so early in the race was not a good sign. However, the first significant hill just 7km out of town created a break by the only four riders of the group who had showed any willingness to work in the first stages. We soon formed an informal alliance, and rolled through toward Donnybrook in tight formation and shared workload, gaining good time ahead of our 24min remnant group. The only distractions along the way were dropping my first Carboshotz tube, eliciting a few tasty words (and the amusing thought that somebody in a following bunch might ride over it and squirt against adjacent rider – hoho – the things that amuse), and the panting and clunking from the No 83 rider/bike combination.
Exhortations to the group that our 24min handicap ‘must not be wasted’ and is a “chance of a lifetime” may (or not) have been a little dramatic, and may (or not) have had some effect on the group, but we had “jelled”! We were riding well and we certainly had a chance! We glimpsed a big group in front of us, about 8km from Donnybrook, and although we expected to catch them soon, it wasn’t until the turn-around at Donnybrook that we finally latched on. I don’t know what other groups thought about our big group’s lead margin as we crossed paths on the return journey out of Donnybrook, but the time gaps seemed pretty good to me! Unfortunately I couldn’t catch sight of Pete, Ryan or Brendan, so hoped they were going OK.
Within the newly formed big bunch, the predetermined informal plan of ‘see how we go when we catch the front markers’ brought back the frustrations of the first kilometres out of Collie. Few riders were willing to work, so once again it fell to the four of us, plus Craig Kimpton (nice work Craig) from SWCC and 1 or 2 others to push the pace along and avoid being caught by the back-markers. The generally flat terrain near Donnybrook meant that it was difficult to break away again from the bunch. Somehow, by thought osmosis, the ‘new plan’ to make a break on the hills out of Mumballup was broadcast to the strong and willing. If only somebody had broadcast to me that there was prize money and trophy on offer for the first rider returning to Mumballup. I think I just rolled around the corner in 2nd or 3rd wheel, without any idea of the lost opportunity. Damn.
Anyway, other opportunities presented themselves soon enough. Hills! I just rode nice and solid up the Mumballup hill at the front of the bunch, and before too long, one of the few remaining riders called out that there were only 6 of us – we were it! Woohoo!The six of us included the four original 24min breakways –me, Chris Roberts, Michael Martin and Tom Bakowski (#83) plus Mike Vanduijnhoven (aka Dutch Mike) and Tony Canzurlo from the 28min group. I knew Dutch Mike from my days in Bunbury and was pleased to see him there. Once again the group I was with worked strongly and evenly, although Dutch Mike looked like he was on his limit to stay in touch. Eventually Dutch Mike disappeared, and thoughts started to turn to how to win this thing!
I had no great confidence in winning a sprint to the line, despite that I felt strong and maybe looked stronger than the others appeared to be. Alternate options were necessary. I had noticed a small descent about 5km from Collie on the outward journey and had previously considered that it might be a possible place to try to make a break. However, as the hill approached, it looked small, and the prospect of time-trialling into Collie endeavouring to maintain a 10 second break were not appealling. We stayed together. A small bout of cramps with about 4km to go caused internal alarm. I had drunk plenty, and eaten plenty – hence my general lack of fatigue – but now this – I didn’t need it! A little rest at the back of the group and drink of water provided some relief, but I felt trepidation at recurrence under hard effort of sprinting, especially out of the saddle.
The new new plan was to ‘go’ at the tiny little ascent before the final left turn to the finish. If I could be first at the corner, get a good clear line around the corner – that presented as my best option, I thought. Well, I got it half right. I was first round the corner, and first for much of the final sprint to the finish, but was pipped right near the line, to finish a very close 4th.
On reflection, there are bitter / sweet thoughts. Perhaps I could have done better, but in reality, I just wasn’t good enough. I had scored a generous handicap, and without that ‘head start’ I would probably have never had the opportunity I had. All 3 placegetters ahead of me were ‘day licence’ riders, and there may be a good argument that such riders should not be given such generous handicaps – but in my situation, without them I would never have got as close as I got. We worked really well as a group, and that gave me lots of satisfaction. A good day in the saddle.
